| Number 10 | August 1, 2000 |
BAND WINS CHRISTIAN MUSIC AWARD
Jamie MacKay of Beach Point and his band, The Great Beyond, have captured the Artist of the Year Award for Christian music. Jamie, (1.4.8A,4,1.1.2) and his band members travelled to Rome, New York, in mid-July to accept the award. The judges selected their album, "Live at the Axe" as the best of 33 other groups from across North America.
"It's good to know that people who are involved with Christian music and have an understanding of it will listen to my music and critically approve it," Jamie said. He told the Eastern Graphic that he received an entry form in the mail and decided to enter. He had a demo album that the band had done during the winter so he sent that along.
Jamie added that he was excited that the band would get a chance to play during the Revive Festival for a group of people who had never heard them before.
Jamie is the organizer of the band and writes most of its songs. He is a professor at Maritime Christian College in Charlottetown, PEI, and the other members of the band are mostly students at the College.
This is the second time the band has been singled out for honours in the past few months. They were nominated for an East Coast Music Award in the Gospel category, losing to the Nova Scotia Mass Choir at ceremonies in February.
You can learn more about Jamie and The Great Beyond by visiting their web page at http://www.jamiemackay.com where you can read the press clippings, see group photographs, listen to their music and check the lyrics. They appear to be working on the page at the moment and it was not available on July 31st. You could try again later.
LIGHTHOUSE GROWING IN POPULARITY
The Cape Bear Marconi Station and Lighthouse Museum is busier than ever this year. Attendance was up more than 250 per cent in June over the same period last year. The figures were announced on Saturday, July 8, at an open house at the Museum. More than 200 local people as well as tourists dropped in that day.
One of the tour guides, June Glover, said the open house was held so that local residents could see the Museum and the items collected so far. "There are a lot of pictures and artifacts around the area in private collections and we want to encourage residents to share them with us." She pointed out that photographs can easily be scanned by computer.
The Cape Bear light was built in 1881 and the Marconi Station went into service in 1905 providing radio service for ships at sea. It was one of the first Canadian land stations to pick up the distress call from the Titanic after she struck the iceberg in April, 1912.
There is no doubt about the desire of the staff to add to their collection of knowledge and artifacts. I met the other tour guide, Dawna MacNeill, (1.12,6,1.1,2.) when I visited the Museum last September. I had done some research on the history of the Light in the mid-70s and Dawna was interested in anything I was able to add to the information she already had at her fingertips. We had a couple of lengthy discussions about its history that week.
The lighthouse had close ties to the Munns as well as to many of the Becks. It was built on land owned by my great, great, great, great uncle, Tom Munn, and he was appointed the first keeper of the light on Nov. 11, 1881. The job paid $300 a year.
His granddaughter, Marie Ferguson MacLeod, (1.4.4,1.2,) told me that he fell from the light and was seriously injured in 1890. His son, John Thomas, tended the light until Tom's death in 1893.
John Thomas was appointed to replace him on Nov. 15, 1893, according to Treasury Board minutes in the National Archives. The salary was still $300., the same as it was 12 years earlier. Curiously, local people were not aware of his term as light keeper. Local histories showed Tom Munn as the first lightkeeper but made no mention of John Thomas. Apparently he was the light keeper until 1898. During its first 17 years, it become known as Munn's Light and carried that name for many years.
The Harbour history says Luther Jordan (1.4.9,) was lightkeeper from 1898 until 1907. Hiram Hyde took over from 1907 to 1919. Clarence White (1.5,3,2,3A,) was there for six years until his death. Ewart Keeping (1.4.9,6,) was by far the longest serving keeper. He operated the light from August 11, 1926 until 1958 when it was converted to an automatic light.
Special guests at the open house were two women with close ties to the lighthouse: Eileen Keeping Nicholson (1.4.9,6,2,) of Montague, and Clara Beck Jordan (1.4.7.1,) of Murray Harbour.
Eileen's father, Ewart Keeping, was the last light keeper, and Clara's husband, Ray, was born in the lighthouse in 1907.
THATCHER DRAFTED BY CANUCKS
Vancouver is a long way from Guernsey Cove, but that's where Thatcher Bell may end up playing NHL hockey. He was selected by the Canucks in the NHL entry draft on June 24. He was chosen in the third round, 71st overall. It came as a surprise as Thatcher hadn't realized that Vancouver had their eye on him.
"I had spoken with them before but nothing too serious. I was talking to a Canuck official Saturday night and he said they had been watching me ever since I played my first year at Upper Canada (College). You don't really know as much about the teams as you think you do."
Thatcher, a member of the Memorial Cup champion Rimouski Oceanic, got to see Vancouver and the Canuck management during a mini training camp July 5-12 in British Columbia.
He had expected to be picked sooner in the draft but there was a lot of interest in European players this year and Canadian players were pushed down the list. Thatcher still has two years of Junior hockey ahead of him and said he would use the Round 3 selection as motivation when he returns to Rimouski this season. "I'm trying to prove to Vancouver that I can play but I also want to prove to the other teams that they kind of made a mistake by not taking me."
Summer used to be a time when players hung up their skates, but not any more. Thatcher took part in the Canuck mini-camp in July, and then headed to a power skating school in Toronto. In August he'll be going to the national junior team evaluation camp in Calgary.
DEATH
BAKER, William Clyde (1.4.1,9,2.) Died at the Kings County Memorial Hospital on Thursday, July 6, 2000. Mr. Baker, 84, of Beach Point was a fisherman and a veteran of the Second World War. He was predeceased by his wife, Janet (nee MacEachern). Survivors include a son, Alan, (Lily), Beach Point; and a grandson, Denver. Surviving siblings include Stanley (Norma) Baker, Stratford; Ada (Chester) MacKenzie, Beach Point; Edith MacDonald, Georgetown; Nettie Williams, Beach Point; Eliza (Wendell) Mill, Stratford; and Adeline (Raymond) Livingstone, Stratford. He was predeceased by a grandson, Carson, a brother, Warren and a sister, Melida MacCallum. The funeral service was held at the Church of Christ, Murray Harbour, with interment in the Murray Harbour Cemetery. St. Andrew's Lodge AF&AM #13 held a service of remembrance for him on Friday evening, July 7th.
BIOGRAPHY
Ernest Fredric Penny (1.5,2.3.) was born at Beach Point on Sept 10, 1875, the son of Vere Penny and Mary Cohoon. A grandson, Eugene Strickland, said all the Pennys were farmers. Ernie's father, Vere, donated a piece of his farm for a lot for the Church of Christ at Murray Harbour.
Ernie bought a farm nearby and he married Selina Jane MacKenzie on June 10, 1897. Ernie helped build the church, and he and Selina were listed among the 13 members of the congregation when the church opened in 1899. Not only that, but Ernie was selected as one of the elders.
Gene said that his grandfather gave up farming sometime in the late 1930s and moved to Murray River where he got a job in Charles Horton's canning factory. When their son, Chester, Gene's father, became ill with MS about 1947 or '48 they moved in with the family to help with the expenses.
Ernest Penny died March 3, 1958.
ARTISTIC TALENT
A good place to meet your Beck relatives this summer is at the Arts Guild in Charlottetown. Drop in at noon or any evening and you're sure to meet some of them. Don't look in the audience though .. check the stage for that's where you'll find them ... involved in three different productions.
HOOD ORNAMENTS
If you ever wanted to see the world through the back window of your car, visit the Arts Guild in Charlottetown for one of the nightly performances of Hood Ornaments. The play was written, filmed and produced by Josh Weale (1.6A.4,6.2.1,2) and two friends, Graham Putnam and Jason Rogerson. They drove to New York last winter for a film production course. They made the trip in a 1980 Chev Celebrity and took their video camera with them.
"We started shooting different scenes from the back window of the vehicle," says Josh. Footage included everything from crossing the Canada-U.S. border at St. Stephen, N.B., to inching their way through the streets of New York.
The show combines film and drama and is set in a real 1980 Chev Celebrity, which was rescued from a junk yard. The trio found the car, tore it apart, rebuilt it and mounted it on a frame before moving it onto the Arts Guild stage.
They have a video screen behind it and project the film footage onto it. Josh says that's so "the audience will have the illusion of travelling all the way to New York City."
In the play two Islanders, Jack and Ketchup, take a road trip to Manhatten to visit Jack's girlfriend, Kate. Along the way, they encounter a hitch-hiking celebrity, a wanna-be gangster and an up-tight film producer, and soon discover that you can plan the trip you take, but you can't always take the trip you planned.
Josh and his friends are not newcomers to the stage. The group also wrote Players, which was produced last summer. It was restaged last December and is returning to Charlottetown again this summer.
LUNCHTIME LAUGHTER
Nancy Beck (1.4.3B.7.2.5) is working through her lunch hour this summer so people in Charlottetown can enjoy theirs. She is performing her one-woman-show, A Rowboat in the Attic, daily at the Arts Guild in Charlottetown. She thinks its the perfect way to spend the lunch hour.
"After all, everyone has to eat and you might as well sit inside and enjoy some entertainment in an air-conditioned theatre," she told Sally Cole of The Guardian.
Nancy is presenting her play about historic Inkerman House and its inhabitants. The home was built by Colonel John Hamilton Gray, a Father of Confederation. When he died, the estate was purchased by William Boyle, Nancy's maternal great-great-grandfather. It remained in her family for almost a century, and generated many of the stories that are recounted in her play.
"It's mostly true stories about an Island family and their home," she says. I think that people are fascinated by the stories of other families because they find something to identify in their own lives, their own eccentric relatives, their own special places in their childhood that touch off wonderful memories."
The play opened on July 3rd, and runs Monday through Saturday until September.
GREENMOUNT BOY
Island historian and storyteller David Weale (1.6A.4,6.2.1,) is at it again. He's put together another stage show based on the memories and dreams of a boy growing up in a small PEI community. David is well known for his books and his previous stage show, A Long Way from the Road.
Greenmount Boy is basically an evening of storytelling, the story of how "a boy ended up in a place ... and the place ended up in the boy."
Much of the show highlights the story of his father, Bill, a coal miner turned minister, and the dramatic events which led him from a small coal mining village in the south of Wales to a mining town in the Canadian Rockies; and then, in 1948, to a rural pastoral charge in Greenmount, in western PEI.
In recounting his boyhood days in Greenmount, David brings to life the fading rural culture of the one-room schoolhouse and the small family farm. With humour and insight, he describes, "a world of cycles, large and small, and the rhythm of the chores, where the work fit round the seasons like the sea fit round the shore."
The show is also a celebration of childhood vision, and of the sense of wonder and delight with which the child regards the world before he or she is overwhelmed by the limiting necessities of adult responsibility.
"Ordinary is a very adult concept. But for the child of six, nothing has yet become ordinary, or second-hand. It's all fresh, and green."
Greenmount Boy plays at the Arts Guild in Charlottetown every Sunday night at 8 until Sept. 10, and at the Victoria Playhouse on Aug. 7 and Sept. 24.
BOOKS STILL AVAILABLE
While the latest version of the Beck listings is sold out, there are still copies of the 1983 book, The Descendants of Vere Beck. This is the professionally printed and bound volume and it includes generations 1 to 6 and some of generation 7.
It's more than adequate for people interested in tracing their line back to Vere and Elizabeth Beck, or for browsing through the early generations of the family. If you're interested you can get a copy from:
Dr. Mac Beck,
5 West Street,
Charlottetown,
PEI.
C1A 3S3.
Mac's phone number is 902-894-3544 and the price is $10.00.
The Vere Beck Family Home Page
We're always looking for news of Beck family members. If you know of any significant events drop me a line with the information. imunn@accesswave.ca
imunn@accesswave.ca